


i am made of memories

by cafedelmar



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M, Multi, Reincarnation, Yeah another one, is this vaguely sad? probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:02:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24134782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafedelmar/pseuds/cafedelmar
Summary: I stop counting. Halfheartedly at best, I try to find things that might fill the void in my chest. Whatever I feed it, it seems to swallow my feeble attempts with complete and utter indifference. Achilles, it whispers to me, Achilles is all you need.
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus (Song of Achilles)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	i am made of memories

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this like 4 years ago found it in my drafts today and decided to just. fucking post it
> 
> warning for like...vague incest themes because of the borgia reincarnation part but i promise it aint nasty ! just sad 🤪

The first time, we became legends. We were- still are- legends in death. We are remembered not for heroics and great deeds, but, ultimately for desperation and tragedy.

The second time, centuries after, we never meet. The world has gotten bigger, or at least it feels like this, and I spend a lifetime remembering something that never really was- not in this life. At first it comes to me as dreams, pictures of two boys wandering forests on a mountain, a cave painted rosé like the most tender light at dusk. A stretched out beach covered in hundreds of tents, sand crunching under the feet of a thousand men, and two among them, never straying from each other's side amidst all the chaos and blood that is spilled. A wall, standing tall und unwavering in front of a soldier clad in bronze armour, gleaming in the sun.

Then come whispered affections in the darkness, careful and reverent touches. A flash of golden locks, sometimes of eyes so green they would make the gods of spring envious.

Only later I recognize them to be memories.  
There is this constant pull that I feel, an emptiness tearing at me. I lack something, though I don't know what it is. I live my life like that. I am not happy; how could I be. I feel like the boy in my dreams is happier, even among all the pain and suffering and death.

The third time, I remember. I wake up one night with a name on my lips, Achilles, and I whisper it to myself in the darkness, its sound strange yet terrifyingly familiar. Perhaps I should have wondered if I have gone insane, but the thought never occurs to me. My name in this life is Michael, or at least it's the one my parents gave to me, but I know that I have always been someone else. Patroclus, his voice whispers to me in my dreams. I wake with a heavy mind and a heavier heart.

I want to look for him, find the one and only person who can fill the aching void that seems to eat me alive. But where do I start?  
I spend this life traveling as much of the world as I can. It's nothing but a desperate attempt, but I have hope where there should not be any.

I meet him just after my 28th birthday. The marketplace is crowded, yet I see him between all the unfamiliar faces as soon as I turn around. I know it is him in an instant, and I almost stumble back with the force of everything that hits me at once. Blindly, without thinking, I stumble forward, shoulder my way through the crowd. 'Achilles', I say, but my voice is hoarse from either disuse or emotion, and he doesn't hear. 'Achilles.' It comes out louder this time. And he hears. He turns around and his eyes meet mine- they are the same green that I remember, that I have always loved. The flit over me as I stare and wait. I am not quite close enough yet, but my feet are pinned to the ground under his inquiring look. His eyes meet mine, again- and there is a question there- then he shrugs and turns back around.

I don't move. There is a strange static sound in my head, a replacement of the voices and clattering sounds around me. I stand there for a long time, staring holes into his back as if I could will him to turn around and see me.

Recognize me.

But he doesn't, and some time after he has left I also turn around and walk away.

The fourth time my name is Loras, and I have freckles and dirty blond hair. I meet Achilles at the age of nine, and we become friends as fast as we did the first time around. He looks different in this life, his hair shorter and not as curly, his figure a little slighter. Sometimes sitting next to him and watching him eat figs reminds me so painfully of what used to be that I have to turn away. Sometimes when he's talking to me in that animated yet leisure way of his, my thoughts drift to us lying in Chirons cave, fingers intertwined, talking about the world and more. Whenever I do things like this, he will stop after a while and say 'Loras, are you even listening?' The corners of his mouth always twitch when he watches me with glinting, mischievous eyes.  
We are best friends our entire lives this time. With twenty-four he marries a beautiful girl named Salia and moves out of our shared little house. My heart stings whenever I see them together, but I never act upon my feelings. I never tell, never stray from his side. This, this one thing is how it used to be.

One time, we are older, we sit on the chaiselounge with a bottle of wine and he tells me. 'I have always felt like there should be more. Like there is something else. I can't quite grasp it, but I know it's there.'

His eyes are the same. He looks at me, his expression open and vulnerable, pleading with me to understand. Salia has just left their house after a fight, one of many in the past few months. He looks down at the half-empty bottle in his hands and continues.  
'Don't misunderstand me, I love Salia. But there is this empty space in me that can't be filled.'

His eyes are closed now, his brows knitted together in sorrow. He feels guilty, I know. There is a voice inside my head screaming for me to to say 'I understand', to explain, to try and make him happy. I know that I could. But then I think of Salia smiling up at him and of their daughter sleeping in the room just a door away, and I remain silent.

There is a certain warying quality to growing up knowing that a major piece in your life is missing. I stop pursuing education and travel instead; I am constantly restless, never stay in one place for too long. My eyes rake over crowds, always scanning for the one and only thing I wish to see. It does not matter where I am born or whose child I am, I never make my parents proud with charm and good behaviour and success. I am a quiet, brooding child, and I leave home as soon as I can. I never come back, never even write. I keep disappointing, not living up to expectations. That, at least, seems to be a constant throughout all the lives I live.

I spend decades searching the world for him without success. I wish I could say that I kept my eyes and heart open for other things; that I still appreaciated the beauty of art and music and sundowns. But that is not true. There can only be so much novelty after centuries of living in total.

The ninth time I am born as a dog. He comes to me in form of a small japanese girl, him and his parents buy me only months after I first see the light of the world. His name is Aiko, and while everything about his looks is different in this life, I still see Achilles in the small girl that has taken to spending every waking hour with me. It is in the way the corners of her mouth twitch before she smiles, and in the way her eyes always tell what she is thinking. It's in the way she moves, nowhere near as graceful and deadly as Achilles used to, but still with an easy and balanced quality that stands out, as it always has.

In what is perhaps a twist of fate and irony, they name me Patrick, but Aiko calls me Pat. I never leave her side, and she doesn't mind. This is alright, I think, at least I have him and we are both happy. We grow up together, spend hours running around in the garden. At night she comes to crawl into my bed and falls asleep next to me.

Then she starts going to school, and days are occupied with homework and studying. She still tries to dedicate as much time to me as possible, and I kill my time waiting for her by remembering everything that used to be, as I always do.

She brings around a boy one day. I am nine now, and already I can feel my bones grow heavier. My fur is not as golden as it used to be. 'Dave, this is Pat. Pat, David' she says. I see David around a lot after that, but they never really see me.

I stay in one place in this life. What I never cease to look for is right in front of me, this time, yet as out of reach as it ever was. After thirteen years, I start losing my appetite. Getting up makes my sinews ache, going out seems more of a chore than the fun it once was. Aiko hasn't come with me in a long time, either. Days pass and I feel more and more tired. Soon I will fall asleep for the last time.

When time comes around, Aiko sits by my side and weeps. I see not her but Achilles, crumpling over my dead and broken body more than a thousand years ago.

A million times I have come close to giving up. I never did; never could. I consider taking the easier way out when my situation becomes too hopeless, but in the end, what good would it be? I am stuck. The gods have cursed me to endlessly wander the realms of the world, to live life upon life devoid of joy. Achilles was my light. With him not by my side, I am blind in the darkness.

The twelfth time I am born to a priest. My mother dies in childbirth, and although he never treats me badly, I can see the suppressed resentment in his eyes, buried deep beside his grief. He blames me. I pity him, but in the end, I do not care.

He raises me in the small house by the church that is his to take care of. Visitors these days are scarce; war is raging just outside the forest. I know this, and I do not dare leave. At night I hear the agonized screams of the dying. Sometimes, Achilles' voice mingles.

My father urges me to stay. 'It is safe here,' he reminds me. 'This is a house of god.' The god he speaks of is not mine, but I do not leave.

The day after my sixteenth birthday, a small group of soldiers comes knocking on our door. The priest goes to open it. I can see the fear in his eyes. Uncertain what to do, I swiftly put the broom I had been using to sweep the cold stone floor aside and go to linger behind a pillar.

I watch as the priest talks to the men outside. Then he lets them in. There are five of them, two carrying a stretcher. A man lies on it, he appears to be unconscious. His linen trousers are stained with blood. I step out from my hiding spot and closer to the injured soldier. Five pairs of eyes flit and come to rest on me. My skin prickles under their scrutiny, but it does not matter. All I can see is the young man lying on the stretcher.

'Philtatos', I whisper. He has come to me. This time, he has found me. 'What did she say?', a soldier asks. I swallow. It is hard to form words right in this moment. Words were always Achilles strength. He spoke when I could not, his voice sharp yet melodical like the soft music he played on his lyre.

'Let me take care of the wounded,' I say, louder this time. My voice is scratchy, uncertain even to my own ears, but they nod and follow my father as he directs them to a room where they can lay down their comrade.

Days go by and I do not once leave his side. His wound is taken care of, but the fever has taken him before their arrival, and now he lies in delirium. The priest comes and goes, brings food, water, and cold rags for the nameless soldier he has so generously given refugee.

'I have never taught you any of this', he says one day. He points a pale, thin finger and the bandaged wound on the soldiers leg. Panic rises in my throat. These things are dangerous in these times. After all I have witnessed or heard of so far, I would not put it beyond a father to proclaim his own daughter a witch. I have burned before, but the thought of flames eating me alive terrifies me. 'I merely took a chance, father.'

He seems satisfied with my answer- perhaps he simply does not want to look into it.  
His comrades take to visiting me from time to time. I can feel their eyes lingering, but in the end they don't dare touch the daughter of the man who gives them shelter, puts food and drink on their table. They know as well as I do that they could easily overcome the frail priest and a fragile young woman. Yet they do not make a move. This is where their honour prevails, I suppose.

After nights of staying awake watching Achilles, the lack of sleep has finally taken its toll. The night he wakes up I am asleep in a chair next to his provisory rest. When I next wake up, his eyes are resting on me. I am suddenly very aware of my appearance; a simple brown linen dress, a dirty white blouse over it. My long hair is shimmery red and falling out of the braids in messy strands. My eyes are green, my features too sharp and my nose too straight. I cannot move. 'You talk in your sleep' is the first thing he says to me in this life. His voice is surprisingly deep. I do not ask him what I said. I already know- it's the same as always, no matter who or where I am or when.

We talk throughout the whole night. He tells me stories of the war, and I simply nod along, because even if this is a different time; a different war- all battles are the same. The suffering, the despair, the smell of blood and gore. The strange mixture of grief and glory afterwards.

Achilles name in this life is Theo. He likes fighting as much as he always has- thus he insists he go back to the fields as soon as possible. I tell him to rest at least a week longer. I tell him I'd rather have him stay for two. Surprisingly, his objections are quite silent and short.

We take to spending a lot of time together. His comrades leave to fight two days after he wakes up, so during the day he has nothing to distract him but me. The soldiers take up on my father's offer to return for a good meal and a safer sleeping place as often as they can.

Theo and I grow close quickly- we click just like Achilles and I did the first time. The priest watches, but he doesn't say anything.

The day Theo leaves to fight comes all too soon. He is already halfway out the door when I catch up to him. 'Take care of yourself', I say hesitantly. He flashes me a smile, brief and small, but there. 'I'll come back.'

I should not worry, seeing as this is Achilles- even if reborn, some of his talents given by the old gods must remain- but I find myself rendered useless for the entire day. When none of the five soldiers return that night, I stay up and watch the small path leading up to the church through a dirty window.

They do not return the next night. Nor the night after that. On the fourth night, my father walks up behind me and puts a light hand on my shoulder. 'You need sleep, my daughter,' he speaks into the silence. I do not turn to look at him. 'Do you not worry?' I ask. His hand remains where it is. 'They are soldiers. Death is upon all of us, but to their feet it clings with their every step.' His hand is warm on my shoulder, but I shiver at his words. He draws away. 'You should pray to god for their safety instead of staring out of a window night by night.' With that, he leaves.

I do not pray to the god whose name I don't even know. I merely hope. On the sixth evening, a knock sounds through the laden silence of the halls. The doors open before I reach them, and there stand Achilles and three of his companions. They look dirty and tired, but their eyes sparkle with a strangely beautiful edge of madness that only fighting can bring.

That night, he comes to my chamber. I'm sitting by the window, still unable to sleep. Outside the moon shines his cold lightt hrough the clouds.

'I came to thank you' he says, taking a few steps so he is standing beside me. I gesture for him to sit down on the bench with me.

'What for?'

A secretive smile pulls across his lips. 'I did take care, you know.'

'You should,' I answer simply. 'Is that not what every man would do if surrounded by death?'

The smile vanishes. 'I never have before. I had nothing to lose.'

Silence settles heavy between us. Perhaps he is waiting for me to say something, but I once more find myself at a loss of words. 'I have-' he starts, then stops himself. His eyes wander upwards; he is looking at the moon now. I watch his profile as he continues to speak. 'Do you ever feel like... something is missing? Some important part of your life? Of you.' His eyes are a paler shade of green in this light. They remind me of the tall grass on the clearings on the mountain Pelion, at night when we lay there to look at the stars and tell each other of the constellations high above us. He swallows. 'But you can't put your finger on it, and no matter what you do and where you look, you cannot find the missing piece.'

It becomes too much, then. I rush forward to kiss him, and for once, there is no hesitance in my movements- this is all I can do, this is what I can give him instead of words. Later he will ask me why I kissed him, that one night, but I remain silent. I do not tell him in this life, either.

Theo continues to go back to the battlefield every day. At night instead of blades it is us that collide. We hold on to each other the same way we always have- we are each other's life line.

One night, three soldiers come back to us instead of four. Achilles- Theo, I always have to remind myself- isn't among them. When I stand up from the table to greet them, my eyes meet theirs. I stop. There is something in their looks, a silent apology, maybe, or perhaps pity. One of them shakes his head. I am so sorry, he says. His words shatter the frail glass of silence that stood like a barrier between us. Broken, it falls to the floor.  
I leave the church the next morning. It is the first time ever since those many years ago before the walls of Troy that I see a battlefield. This time my death is less significant. No crowd gathers around me as I lie broken on the dirty ground. I wear no helmet to be taken off. There is no one left to bring my body back to, this time. But the last thing I think is, this is how Achilles must have felt. Relieved.

In my thirteenth life, I am born as the bastard son to an ambitious man named Rodrigo Borgia. He serves the 'holy mother church' as a cardinal in the vatican. I am raised to fulfil expectations, raised to play the game they all play here. I do not see much of this God they all pomised to devote their lives to, but I never question anything out loud. I function, they raise me to be a cardinal, but for the first time in my life I'd rather be the warrior than the believer.

Ambitious and cunning though my father may be, he is a loving head of family, and he keeps my mother and his two bastard sons around despite the openly shown disapproval of all the other cardinals. A few years later, my mother gives birth to another child, a girl this time. When I look at my sister for the first time I see blonde locks and blue eyes with a tinge of green. She looks up at me and smiles, and my heart stops. With nine years I am merely a child, yet I know who this is- once again, Achilles has come to me, and once again, he is painfully far out of my reach.

Lucrezia, they name my little sister, and she and I grow up sheltered amidst a loving and warm family in a beautiful palaggio.

Lucrezia and I are close right from the beginning, and I often remember how as a child my mother allowed me to hold my sister for the first time, and I vowed to protect her at all costs; that nothing would ever come between us.

My father is elected pope soon after I turn 25. Our family has risen fast, and the distrust spreads through the ranks or the vatican just like the pest spreads through the dirty, narrow streets down below. Lucrezia is fourteen years old now, an outstanding beauty, and I know that she is soon to be wed in favour of alliances that our family so bitterly needs. My days are occupied with intrigue and treachery among the cardinals, but on my mind is only Lucrezia. These times are less noble than the ones I was first born into, filled with even more pretense and false kindness; empty words veiling ugly truth. I can see her losing her childlike innocence, day after day her light shines a little less bright.

'What if my husband proves...ungallant?' She asks one day. We are on a crosswalk, alone, below us the beautiful city of Rome is bathed in sunlight. It doesn't reach the lowest streets. I turn and press her against a sand colored pillar, lean in close. 'Then I shall cut his heart out with a dinner knife, and serve it to you on a golden plate', I say, half whispered half hissed, looking at her intently.

She doesn't look frightened, merely stunned for a moment. Then a smile breaks free. The sun pushes through and shines her pale light upon the poor and the damned. Unveils the misery behind the riches, behind the thrones of greedy kings and corrupt priests.

'I will never love any husband as I love you, Césare' she replies, still smiling. I bury my face in her hair. My breaths come too shallow. I close my eyes. 'No', is all I whisper.

A few weeks later, Lucrezia is married to Giovanni Sforza, a noble with a stone-like face without smiles in his repertoire of expressions. They leave soon after the wedding. My days become clouded with plans and plots, and I can feel the poisonus ambition run through my veins. It is the curse of this family. Lucrezia knows this; will say it, much later. I still remember her words, even if they were spoken so many lifetimes ago.

'What rules this family, Césare?' Her voice is shrill, close to breaking with tears. I swallow.

'Love', I answer, but the sound of it is frail, hesitant. She whirls around, faces me.

'Ambition' is her reply, sharp and laced with pain and fury. I see Achilles in her, her strength, her passion, her fury, and I turn away.

We spend this life in constant agony, fear draped around us, a thin blanket foolishly used in an attempt to keep the poison out, the pretense, the false kindness, the empty words. The treachery, the diseases, the blood.

Lucrezia has changed again when she returns from Sforza's residence. She took the first chance to flee that she had, come to her in form of the Pope's new mistress, La bella Farnese. Her husband did prove to be ungallant, she tells me. I look at her and see nothing left of the child that I vowed to protect.

The next man she is promised to is Alfonso of Arragón. The marriage will bring us an alliance to Naples, but I don't care much for Naples and its king. Lucrezia seems happy with Alfonso, and although I taste a constant bitterness in the back of my throat, mostly I am relieved to see her smile again. They reside here in Rome with us, for now, and every day the marriage comes closer, the tension between me and my sister thickens.

There are whispers in the streets; hushed voices tell of the two Borgia siblings who committed the unspeakable sin, while their father the Pope of Rome turns a blind eye to their indulgences. None of it is true, but I can feel deep in my bones that this rumour, like all others, comes from a truth that has long since settled in our very core.

We kiss the night before her wedding. In the banquet hall there is a wooden board with names pinned to it, showing the seating order for the day to come.

'I placed you here, as you can see,' Lucrezia says, pointing at my name scribbled on a piece of parchment. Césare, it reads. It feels foreign. She takes a deep breath. In the dim light, the blue in her eyes makes way for the green. Her hair isn't done, light curls framing her face. She looks like a distant memory.

'By my side,' she says, voice too sharp to match her looks. I nod, breathe out a silent yes. She turns.

'Are you?' I can hear in her voice that it is a genuine question, laced with fear and perhaps apprehension. It stings more than arrows shot and spears thrown. I take a step towards her.

'Naples, all the others- they can crumble to dust for all I care' I reply, heatedly, my voice cracking with the force behind the words. 'As long as you-' And then I kiss her, pull her close to me and encircle her in my arms.

Even while the kiss lasts all of me screams for it to stop, but I cannot. The worst thing is that Lucrezia does not back away. We break apart on a shaky exhale, she touches her fingers to her lips, tentatively. Her eyes are glistening with tears. I can't bear to see it.

'Forgive me' I manage to rasp before I leave in a hurry. Lucrezia remains perfectly still.

I have no doubt that it is the soul- always the soul- that is put in a new body each time I wake anew. It should be me, entirely, nothing but my gentle heart and frail feelings guiding whoever I am through the centuries, but it isn't always. As Césare Borgia I can feel more, a new twist, dark ambitions and a lust for power I have never felt before. That night as I lie awake, I tell myself it is that same foreign part that had me kiss my sister, but I can't quite silence the voices that ride on the wind gently blowing through the open window, whispering 'It is Achilles, always Achilles' and 'have you not wanted this?' as they graze me.

I tell myself that I have done it before; stayed by his side for entire lifetimes for lack of another option, simply watching, longing, aching. That I can do it again, even this time, even though I can feel the weight of Achille's- Lucrezia's- eyes trailing after me whenever we are in the same room. I watch her maneuver her way through intrigue and treachery with effortless ease. She is dangerous, I realise, perhaps way too late. There is something sharp in her eyes even as she speaks to cardinals and kings with perfect etiquette, soft smile never leaving her face. Never reaching her eyes. At night I dream of Achilles, of the way he looked at enemies, of hatred tainting his features. He, too, is poinsoned in this life. Part of me can't help but resent him- or Lucrezia, perhaps, though they are one and the same- the same way I hate that foreign part of me that is more Borgia than Patroclus.

When Lucrezia finally finds me alone, I reject her. She is the picture of hurt and fury, and once again I realise Achilles is just as proud in this life as he has always been. I leave Rome before I can change my mind.

'Do you know?' I ask her once, once only.

Months have passed. She has been watching me intently. The way she looks at me reminds me too much of times long gone.

Her brows knit together, but she laughs.

'Know what?' she asks. I have never asked Achilles before, never spoken of it in all those lives, and now my words fail me.

'Us,' I say, too quietly. 'Who I am. Who you are.'

'We are Borgias. We take what we want,' she replies.

I avoid her until the poison steeped end, but at least in this life, Achilles dies in my arms.

I do not find Achilles in the next life, nor the one after that. Perhaps it is a small mercy. Both these lives I am haunted by the way he looked at me when Lucrezia died. I close my eyes and see the small bottle of poison slip from her delicate hand. I fall asleep and dream of it. The hint of surprise on her face in that last moment, just as her eyes met mine. In my better dreams, she remembers. In my nightmares, Achilles knows, realises what I have done. What we have done.

Times change. The world is no less cruel. It simply tortures her subjects in different ways. We are a legend now, no more than a myth. In my weakest and loneliest moments I reach for Achilles through the pages of books and lines of prose.

I stop counting. Halfheartedly at best, I try to find things that might fill the void in my chest. Whatever I feed it, it seems to swallow my feeble attempts with complete and utter indifference. Achilles, it whispers to me, Achilles is all you need.

The next time I meet Achilles- the number must be in the twenties now- things are different. He has lost Lucrezia's bitter edge.

His name in this life is Edith, and he is no less rebellious and dangerous than he has always been. Edith has a mind of her own, stirs up trouble wherever and whenever she can. It is easy to fall in love with this carefree and mischievous version of Achilles all over again. Before long I forget Cesare's pain.

We become friends quickly. Most of our time is spent together, and one summer we pack our things and go to Vassar College together. I spend too much time wondering if Achilles loves me in this life. The rest of it I spend trailing after Edith as she blazes her way through the campus, all glinting eyes and crooked smiles. Despite her troublemaking nature, both the other girls and the professors are helplessly charmed by her. I am reminded of old times, of the years when Achilles shone so bright it was almost painful to look for too long.

'You always look at me as though you're looking for something-' Edith pauses, sighs softly. '-someone else,' she corrects. I stare wordlessly. Two of her fingers are tangled in my hair. I do not speak. 'Acacia,' she says, her tone uncharacteristically quiet and soft.

Acacia. A name of greek origin. It has never felt like my own. Even from Edith's lips, it sounds strange. There is another name I want to hear, a different one. I try to imagine what it would sound like, were she to say it.

'Are you even listening?'

She's watching me with familiar intensity. Her hair is cut short, bleached from the summer sun. Freckles dust her nose and cheeks. Her eyes are green, so green. A million words are at the tip of my tongue, but I close my mouth and swallow them down.

'Yes. Sorry.'

She laughs. Memories of Achilles, still young and carefree, untainted by war and heros and gods, come unbidden.

'Always somewhere else, aren't you.' Her smile is fond, but there is something else, just beneath the surface. I feel like I have seen it before.

'I'm here now,' I say quietly. She kisses me.

This life is a happy one. It isn't easy, but Edith loves me, and that's enough. Sometimes I can't help but think that no matter how much she loves me, she could never understand just how much I feel, but I know it isn't fair, so I cast the thought aside again and again.This is enough.

The world has a lot to offer, now. I, the fool I am, don't care much for any of it. Still I spend my lives searching. I live and breathe memories. They keep me alive, keep me going. Sometimes, when I don't find him, I wonder if he is out there at all. Maybe I am simply too late this time around. Maybe every time I find him, the gods have taken mercy on me after watching me wander aimlessly for too long. Other times it feels like they're playing cruel games with me. I spot Achilles in a history book in elementary school. The book is not on ancient history, the usual myths and legends, but on recent wars. This Achilles, this soldier, has been dead for quite a while.

I start to hear Achilles in my dreams. Patroclus, he asks, where have you been? Where are you?

I do not see him. His voice comes from far away. I have been waiting for you, he says, and in the darkness I stretch my fingers, reaching out into nothingness. I am waiting for you, Achilles whispers. I wake up.

In some lives, I only remember him after years and years have passed. This too must be a small mercy.

The next life, I remain blessedly unaware for quite long. The days pass quickly, playing outside in the scorching summer heat, being taught to read and write by our house teacher, learning how to handle weapons and sparring with the other boys. An odd sense of familiarity finds me in certain places, whenever I venture too far from my home. There, I look around without understanding what exactly I am looking for. As I get older I get more restless, and finally I am allowed to leave and travel as I see fit. I have no destination, simply follow the yearning that pulls at my chest. My feet carry me to the foot of a mountain. A dream commands me to stay, just a while, just wait, so I do.

I remember everything at once.

'Patroclus,' someone says. It is a voice I know better than my own. It comes from behind me where the forest begins. I stare down at my reflection in the brook, paralysed with the weight of a million memories rushing back. For a moment, the face I see is unfamiliar. I blink, and the moment passes.

He is there when I turn around.

'Patroclus,' he says again, breathless, almost a question. My lips part, no sound comes out.

His brows furrow, concern colours his features. 'I'm sorry.' He takes a step towards me. It is strange to see his movements looking unsure.

'You know me,' I finally say. 'You remember.'

Achilles smiles. It looks as it should, at last. The way it does in those memories I have preserved throughout lifetimes, that I clung to when I was alone.

'Of course I do.' The sunlight illuminates the unshed tears sheening his eyes, and finally, finally, I find the strength to move.

Achilles meets me halfway, as he used to.

'Achilles,' I whisper against his skin, again and again. It's been a long time since I have let myself say it.

Under his touch, the weight of centuries crumbles to dust.

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i literally hate writing first person and this is nothing i would ever think to write today so i didnt bother editing or anything lmaoooo but i love cleaning out my drafts so here we go i guess  
> most of the names for achilles actually have fitting meanings because im a clown as seen throughout the whole borgia part


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